Facilities such as restraints and supports useful in hospital, health care, and home care settings are well known in the art. Such facilities are used to enhance and ease the lives of those individuals who may not be able to carry on normal or routine daily activities. These types of facilities have been used for assisting people with disabilities in mobility and transport, routine daily activities, and normal bodily functions.
Several exemplary devises include Michalowski, U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,750 which discloses a sling chair for transporting disabled persons. Roesler, U.S. Pat. No. 5,097,542 discloses a chair that will fit inside a bathtub or shower stall which is held in place by suction cups affixed to the wall of the shower or bath.
Aguilar, U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,546 discloses a rocker recliner chair which has been adapted to rock or pivot between a forward stable position to a rearward unstable position. Aldus et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,358,263 discloses a travel-air chair which is essentially a wheelchair capable of being folded into a compact size for storage and a hanging wardrobe or overhead storage of an aircraft.
Johnson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,116,067 discloses a convertible chair support for a person with a disability. The support structure is adapted so that it can be attached to the standard wheelchair wheels for providing mobility to disabled persons while allowing for the interchanging of accessories useful in various activities such as sporting activities like water skiing, snow skiing and the like.
Suhre, U.S. Pat. No. 4,617,919 discloses a wheelchair with posture supports for adjustably supporting the neck, thoracic cavity, and thighs. DeWeese, U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,812 discloses a travel-lift chair which has an adjustable seat that may be raised or lowered by a hand-powered hydraulic ram. Jeanes, U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,183 discloses a customized home chair which reclines to meet the requirements of the occupant. DiVito, U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,766 discloses a lift chair for people with disabilities which has a rotatable seat and moveable back.
While many of these inventions provide features necessary and helpful to overcome problems suffered by people with disabilities, there is a definite need for supports, restraints which are comfortable, easily adjustable, and easily maintained over the longer term. Specifically, individuals who are born with disabilities or become disabled at a very early age generally require supports or restraints for the balance of their life. As the individual grows, the guardian is presented with the dilemma of purchasing newer, larger restraint and support systems on a regular basis. Further, in many instances the individual's need for restraint or support is immediate and missizing of the support or seat, caused for example by patient growth, cannot be tolerated. For example, in many individuals with cerebral palsy, spinal support is an absolute necessity to provide for correct skeletal support and to avoid the occlusion of the cardiovascular system. The result of this dilemma is that a support such as a seating system must be replaced or adjusted regularly to allow for proper fitting of a growing person with a disability.
As an alternative, adjustable support or restraint systems may be used. However, as with many health care technologies, adjustment of any device can often be complex requiring the assistance of a professional or additional special tooling. This can be terribly inconvenient and expensive, especially in circumstances where the individual with a disability lives in an area located any distance from a health care facility.
As a result, there is a need for adjustable restraints and assists which may be easily maintained in any number of environments through the simple manipulation of the device.